Taffy was a Welshman

Versions of this rhyme vary. Some common versions are:

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief;
Taffy came to my house and stole a leg of beef;
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed;
I took the leg of meat and hit him on the head.

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief;
Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef;
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy wasn't in;
I jumped on his Sunday hat and poked it with a pin.

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a sham;
Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of lamb;
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was away,
I stuffed his socks with sawdust and filled his shoes with clay.

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a cheat,
Taffy came to my house, and stole a piece of meat;
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was not there,
I hung his coat and trousers to roast before a fire.[2]

The term "Taffy" is a corruption of the personal name Dafydd (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈdavɨð]), with the Oxford English Dictionary describing the origin as "representing a supposed Welsh pronunciation of the given name Davy or David (Welsh Dafydd)".[3] It was common for people in times of war to dehumanise an enemy by ascribing a singular name to them all.[4] As such, it is an equivalent of other historic pejoratives used by English soldiers, such as Paddy and Jock.

the use of the term was apparently common by 1744. While Taffy Was a Welshman became the more popular rhyme published in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, the book also featured a second rhyme to use the term mockingly:

Taffy was born
On a Moon Shiny Night,
His head in the Pipkin,
His Heels upright.[2]

The earliest record we have of the better known rhyme is from Nancy Cock's Pretty Song Book, printed in London about 1780, which had one verse:

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief;
Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef;
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy wasn't home;
Taffy came to my house and stole a marrow-bone.[2]

Similar versions were printed in collections in the late eighteenth century, however, in Songs for the Nursery printed in 1805, the violence against "Taffy" had become more pronounced:

I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed,
I took the marrow bone and beat about his head.[2]

In the 1840s James Orchard Halliwell collected a two verse version that followed this with:

I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was not in;
Taffy came to my house and stole a silver pin.
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was in bed;
I took up a poker and threw it at his head.[5]

This version seems to have been particularly popular in the English counties that bordered Wales, where it was sung on Saint David's Day (1 March) complete with leek-wearing effigies of Welshmen.[2] The image of thieving Welshmen seems to have begun to die down by the mid-twentieth century, although the insulting rhyme was still sometimes used along with the name "Taffy" for any Welshman.